This week on Maker Update, a freeform LED ball, a preview of Alt Control GDC, rolling your own image sensor, touchy triangles, cardboard Sithcraft, hydro-dipping, and optical punching.

++Show Notes [Maker Update #156]++

-=Project of the Week=-

Freeform LED Sphere By jiripraus
https://www.instructables.com/id/Christmas-LED-Sphere/

-=News=-

20 unique games you’ll play at GDC 2020’s alt.ctrl.GDC showcase!
https://gamasutra.com/view/news/355554/Check_out_the_20_unique_games_youll_play_at_GDC_2020s_altctrlGDC_showcase.php

-=More Projects=-

DIY Image Sensor and Digital Camera By seanhodgins
https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Image-Sensor-and-Digital-Camera/

Light Me Up! by Hyewon Shin, Eunjeong Ko, Junsung Yi
https://www.instructables.com/id/Light-Me-Up/

Star Wars Sith Wayfinder By JoopB1
https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Starwars-Sith-Wayfinder/

-=Tools/Tips=-

Jen Schachter’s Favorite Things
https://youtu.be/DMVwoCbu9-s

Recycle Cardboard Into Anything With 3D Printing! By XYZAidan
https://www.instructables.com/id/Recycle-Cardboard-Into-Anything-With-3D-Printing/

LED Thread by Effulgent
https://twitter.com/GeekMomProjects/status/1214009527000911873?s=09

Hydro Dipping Carbon Fiber Blaster Grips!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c6lduDuIA

Flexbar Optical Punch Set by Sean Michael Ragan
https://youtu.be/87mOTlifaVQ

Gareth’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales – Issue #31
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/garethbranwyn/issues/gareth-s-tips-tools-and-shop-tales-issue-31-217495

-=Digi-Key Spotlight=-

How to Breadboard
https://youtu.be/8hyL9DXYFZc

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, a freeform LED ball, a preview of Alt Control GDC, rolling your own image sensor, touchy triangles, cardboard Sithcraft, hydro-dipping, and optical punching.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell, back from CES and here with another episode of Maker Update this week. Just your standard, awesome episode. It’s actually really good because I have a month of projects and tips to catch you up on. So let’s get started with the project of the week.

I’ve shown you the work of Jiri Prau and his intricate circuit sculptures a number of times. He’s back with this incredible programmable LED sphere.

He noticed how at the end of last year, people were going crazy for animated LED cubes made from printed circuit boards. But as the guru of freeform circuit design, Jiri figured he was in a unique position to make a sphere.

To create the design, he first created a 3D printed jig that holds the surface mount LEDs in place. He then uses a brass wire, sized to a template, to create rings that alternate polarity back and forth, soldered directly to the LEDs.

It’s painstaking work, especially when you consider that you can’t let your soldering iron linger too long without burning the LED or the plastic jig holding everything together.

But things get really crazy when he hand solders the data pins between each LED using small sections of brass wire. The jig doesn’t help him with that and there are 194 LEDs in this design.

But when he puts it all together, driven by an ESP32 board and a battery pack in the middle, the result looks stunning.

You can find the instructions, code, template and files for the 3D printed jig all on Jiri’s Instructable.

It’s time for some news. Gamasutra has announced the list of the crazy maker-made arcade games that will be joining the alt.CTRL showcase at this year’s Game Developer Conference in March.

This showcase always brings out some interesting and hilarious hardware that uses novel ways to interact with the game.

This year, we’ll be seeing giraffes that you can stretch, muliplayer submarine hardware, chariot racing, a dog game where you navigate by smell, a hugging machine, and competitive cow milking.

You can find the full list in the video description, and with any luck, we’ll have another special edition Maker Update just for alt.ctrl.

Now for more projects. And the running theme here is projects that require incredible patience. This time it’s Sean Hodgins, who made his own camera image sensor by soldering 1024 tiny light sensors onto a PCB by hand! According to Sean, just that part alone was two and a half hours of solid work.

The rest of the camera is comprised of a small screen, a shutter button, a microSD card slot and a battery holder. The housing is 3D printed and can hold a standard lens.

The resulting image is just one killopixel — pretty tiny — so it’s more of an engineering feat than a practical project. Still, it’s cool to know that it’s even possible to roll your own image sensor, and I’ve never seen a project quite like it. Sean includes all the resources you need to recreate it on his Instructable.

I also loved this interactive light board project by Hyewon Shin, Eunjeong Ko, Junsung Yi.

Using laser cut triangles of diffused acrylic, and 3D printed cavities behind them that hold neopixels and tactile switches, the team created an infinitely expandable light board. By pressing on a triangle, you cycle through different colors until you release it. The images you create have a cool, voxel, 3D look to it.

Again though, there’s no small amount of work that goes into making something like this. I have to imagine that each triangle takes a few hours of printing, cutting, gluing, soldering and connecting. Fortunately, the documentation on this project is outstanding, so if you do take it on, at least you won’t get lost.

Finally, for a low tech labor of love, check out this papercraft Sith Wayfinder from the latest Star Wars movie, made by JoopB1. All you need for this one is some cardboard, some paper, a hot glue gun and a cheap LED lamp. The result is really cool, even if you’ve never seen the movie. The template, photos and video are all available using the link in the show notes.

Now for some tools and tips. On Tested, Jen Schacter has a video going over some of her favorite tools of the year. A lot of them, like these Cleco pliers used to position rivet holes, were new to me and worth checking out.

XYZAidan has a guide on how to use 3D printed forms to shape recycled cardboard pulp. It’s a great guide, and I think a cool way to empower students to take direct action on creating things with recycled materials.

Through a tweet from GeekMomProjects I learned about Glow Silk LED Fiber Yarn made by a company called Effulgent. It’s like if you took a fairy light LED strand and shrunk it down to the diameter of a thread. It looks like a neat option for wearables and costumes.

Adam Savage and Jen Schacter have a video on how to apply a fake carbon fiber finish on 3D printed props using a process called hydro dipping. There’s a great tip in here on how to create seams on the finish by sealing your first half in a clear coat before dipping the second half.

On the Cool Tools channel, Sean Michael Ragan shows off an affordable Optical Punch set. It’s an ingenious system for when you need to make very precise marks on material. I’d never seen one before, so I figured you’d be into it.

And in the latest issue of Gareth Branwyn’s Tips, Tools and Shop Tales newsletter, there’s some great tips on etching metal with a 9v battery, and driving bolts with a pencil eraser.

For this week’s Digi-Key spotlight, they’ve got a video up on getting started with using a breadboard. I know for a lot of us, it’s old hat. But I also remember when I first got started in electronics how mysterious and puzzling breadboards were. If that’s where you are, then this video should be illuminating.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a comment or leave a thumbs up. Also, we had a late but very special show on Monday showing off maker-related projects from the Consumer Electronics Show. If you missed it, it’s worth a watch.

A huge thanks to my patrons on Patreon and to Digi-Key for making this show possible. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next week.